SAVE IEMANJA!

The theme for the SubZero group final was ocean pollution. We wanted to make a statement to inform an audience to take precaution of what pollution does to the ocean and the creatures that live in it. In my opinion, we successfully interrogated the theme of saving of the ocean. The story line for the performance took a bit of a turn, but the theme stayed the same. The first story line was to have two orixas; which were Iemanja and Omolu. Iemenja is the patriot of Brazil, therefore being the deity of the Ocean. Omolu is the deity of disease, and he could either cure or spread disease. The group and I wanted to have fish as well, so we incorporated sea creatures as well. As we began, we had Iemanja as the center of attention, and the fish swimming around her freely and peaceful. Omolu would then come and pollute the sea killing all the fish. We found this performance too short so we added more events to it to get the theme of the protest across in a more efficient way.

When Iemanja would be in the center and the fish swimming around freely, Omolu would come and battle Iemanja to only defeat her. Omolu would also give each fish a piece of garbage, which would represent the pollution. Omolu would eventually kill all fish leaving only a shark behind, but he would die as well after not being able to find any pray. At this point the theme of our performance has reached its climax. Omolu had spread its pollution, which would then cause the fish to die, making diseases such as mercury spread throughout the ocean creating a chain of deaths. But to the rescue came the patriot, Iemanja, to clean the water and save the fish. She would then come back to battle Omolu and defeat him and save the fish and the ocean. After Iemanja’s cure, the fish followed her as they threaded in great appreciation of her work.

At the beginning of the performance, when all the fish had gone under the bridge Omolu and Iemanja had made for them, all the fish lined up facing each other. As the fish lined up, Omolu and Iemanja walked around the fish staring down at each other. Then when the song sang “she came along,” she meaning Iemanja, both Orishas stepped to the center for a battle, which started the elements of the theme. During their battle, all the fish swam around them looking at what was occurring. The fish circled them swimming back and forth confused of what was happening to Iemanja, their Goddess. Once her presence had left and Omolu took over by spreading its pollution, the fish spread out losing order and dying. This is why when Iemenja came back, the fish showed their obsession towards her by dancing for her. When the song sang “rain,” all the fish got rained on by Iemanja, and all the fish made rain drop arm gestures.

After the performance when our peers came to talk to us, many of them said repeatedly that our message was clearly stated. Many said that the message was more emphasized when Omolu gave each fish a piece of trash. Then others said they found that part being sad, especially because of the fact that it actually occurs to some sea creatures in reality. A friend of mine also said that the costumes we wore helped get the message across very well. All of the group members, except for the shark and orixas, had the colors of the fish they pertained to or at least came close to. For example a crab wore red, a turtle wore green, and the shark wore gray and red, and etc. The shark wore red to represent that he was a predator, and gray to represent the color of a shark. Other fish were; a clown fish, and a star fish to name a few. Lastly, there were pictures drawn on our shirts to demonstrate which fish each group member was. The orixas only wore their color, with the exception of Omolu who also wore black. Omolu wore black for this performance to foreshadow death, and brown for its deity color. Iemanja wore blue to represent herself and the ocean she was trying to protect.

In the end, the performance was extremely fun. When we started brainstorming ideas, the group and I never thought we would be able to come up with what we had finished with. At first it was hard to figure out a perfect time that suited everyone’s schedule, so we ended up meeting at different times. The absent members would get filled in of what we talked about the next day, or next meeting. For practice the same issue crossed our path. The best time for everyone was past nine at night, so for the most part, we would practice around ten at night. Even then nothing stopped us from practicing; we did the buddy system, especially the girls for safety reasons. Practicing at ten worked out fine for all. We were done with the day’s work, and all we had left to do was to be creative and dance. At this time of the day the school was not as busy because it was not during the day, so we were not in people’s way or interrupting classes in session.

This performance made me realize how creative I could be, and how much teamwork helps make a great performance. My business class mentioned how our American culture likes to work alone, and how the Japanese culture likes to work in groups. These two country’s economies are always being compared because they both have great products to export, but the only difference is that Japan works in groups; therefore, not having to work as hard. The jobs get evenly distributed, which was similar to how we distributed our jobs in our parade group. For example; Edgar and Fatima were the choreographers, Daisy was in charge of the music, Alan was the locator, and ect. Because of our hard work and creative minds our performance had a great impact with a successful interrogated theme.